Category Archives for Maintanance

We see a week or so ago Roel criticizing the local Rate Payers and Residents Association for trying to get the government off its complaisant lazy ass and for it properly look into the dodgy, constantly changing so called business plan the city has for Kings Sq.

I wonder whats worse the rate payers asking the questions, or the city making a risky business decision and leaving the city 10’s of millions of dollars in Debt with a depleted revenue based portfolio as our current Mayor wants to sell off anything, his &^%$s haven’t leased out.

Anyway on the issue of Damaging Brand Freo, apart from council seemingly attempting to bankrupt the city, the Mayors latest debacle, his canceling of the Australian Day fireworks.

Whats Not Happening Australia Day 2017 with our present Freo council and mayor

While I’m not overly enthused with fireworks per-say , and they aren’t necessary to celebrate Australia Day. Its hardly surprising to see the community reaction. Many do take the chance to celebrate Australia Day its a great way for family’s to do an outdoor activity and when you go to the local parks to watch, you see what a great community we have in Freo, everyone coming together to celebrate our national day, in a happy, peaceful,respectful atmosphere.

Its great you don’t need to go to Fremantle centre and expose your young family to the anti-social types, Fremantle centre has become a magnet for, drunk’s druggies, the vandalism, the drug dealers, the violence and foul language which has just gotten out of control in the CBD, over the last decade or so.

So back to the question who is really damaging “BRAND FREMANTLE”, concerned community members, or a council, which has overseen;

The crash of retail

The exodus of jobs

The decline of business in general

The increase in Alcohol based events, its the one way our council drives people to the city, killing off its once family friendly reputation. Even simple events like meet the candidates, needs an open bar, I see co-run by the network, another council directed community group.

The decline of basic maintenance

The loss of Parking, a key ingredient to the success of any Australian retail/business precinct

The encouragement of graffiti vandalism by the COF/Mayor

Increase in anti-social behaviour

Increase in crime

Fremantle known as a top 10 worse suburbs for assaults in WA, nothing unusual to see this for freo, https://www.crimestopperswa.com.au/open-cases/assault-south-terrace-fremantle/

Etc.

Now we see worldwide, the laughing stock the mayor has made of Fremantle, with his attack on an Australian Day; a favoured celebration, the fireworks night; as he’s concerned its upsetting a small part of our community, but happily the mayor is willing to piss-off the majority to achieve nothing.

“The mayor of Fremantle has expressed his surprise that a decision to cancel the city’s Australia Day celebrations has become a nationwide debate.

Brad Pettitt said while plenty of people contacting him after yesterday’s decision were unhappy, he believed the majority of Fremantle residents backed the move.”

What a pile of crap the mayor believing the community would want this. Just showing how completely out of touch with reality he is. And Brad its not nationwide its gone international. Blogs are posting worldwide even with video of how bad this idea is.

Some make Australia great

some drag it downsome just celebrate how great it is

In his last election only approx 18%, of the community voted for him , so he’s entitled to say he speak for that minority group, he is clueless arrogant to what the majority want.
Whats next, canceling Christmas, Easter or blessing of the fleet, where will he’s attacks stop on Australian celebration days, in his need to appease a few minority at the expense of the broader community. Looking more and more like a need to have his face in the paper, is he that insecure?

These issues are political motivated by national and state politics, this well could be the thin edge of the wedge; as party politics has infested our local council like a cancer.

Council is about the amenity of the residents and ratepayers, not there for a select few to drive their personal party political agendas which have failed on a state and national level. This is why local councils like freo support groups, like 350, One planet, as they can not penetrate politics the way they like, at a larger level, especially where compulsory voting is in place, so they attack areas, like councils, where the general community takes little interest until it directly effects them, then being to late to stop. When continually ignored by the council its not surprising that they lose interest in participation.

Councils that are dominated by groups like this, rely on the complacency of the wider public to sneak their agendas in.

Great way to kill of tourism, people come to Australia to see Australia, not a washed out versions of its former self, as our council attempts to make whats great bland and uninteresting, in case it offends someone.

Apart from the mayor perhaps going his usual i chat to whom i knows agrees with me; I see no evidence on any community engagement from the council, with its rate payers and residents on this issue, clearly the Mayor Brad Pettitt, got it wrong again, as he does so often.

The City of Fremantle is committed to best practice community engagement and engages on a diverse range of issues and projects.

Community engagement is a way of acknowledging the skills, knowledge and passion contained within the citizens and stakeholders of the City and seeks to combine these with the skills, knowledge and passion of staff and elected members.”

If we look back a few years and refer to media reports, the city of Fremantle and its Mayor Brad Pettitt recognized or at least talk about the need for retail environment to improve in Fremantle, as we see in the Wests story below.

“Fremantle needs to renew itself as an economic centre by growing its population, bringing in more office workers and attracting a high-profile department store such as David Jones in order to boost its stagnating retail sector, according to the city’s mayor. “

Sadly the Mayor missed the other part needed, the one the council could have the most influence on the anti-social, issues, Graffiti problems, maintenance of the city control assets, the city has a bad parking image, so what has councils done, sell off more parking, plus removed more on street parking. Not to mention approving more office, business and residential projects all lacking in parking infrastuure, while whining about the poor retail situation Fremantle is in. Go figure they are not helping the situation.

So while other centres and expanding and are aggressively increasing their parking assets, freo’s regressing and selling off the parking it does control. Freo council is just anti-car, which will lead to anti growth.

“The City of Fremantle says a plan to double the size of Garden City Shopping Centre flouts the guidelines and will siphon more retail from the port city and undermine its efforts to establish a key economic centre. “

So while other centres are going, Fremantle is reaching for Kleenex to cry about others doing their jobs while they continue on the blind campaign running Freo’s opportunities further into the ground.

“Garden City shopping centre at Booragoon will become the retail heart of a restaurant, entertainment, commercial and higher-density residential precinct under plans endorsed by the WA Planning Commission.

An expansion to make the shopping centre WA’s biggest is just one plank in a broader city centre overhaul that includes the development of a new high street and piazza, a revamped cinema complex and the introduction of small bars and restaurants intended to draw people to the area outside shopping hours.”

So now it will not be long before new bars and restaurant takes over from Freo as a night time entertainment district. As long as they (Melville) controls anti-socials issues, benefits like massive free parking and the ability to shop, go for dinner and park once, is a win win for Booragoon and lose lose, sadly for Fremantle.

When Councillors have attitudes like we see from Andrew S comments on Roels Freo View, it doesn’t bode well for Freo’s future.

A cut and paste of part of Andrews comment, the link above at the top of the page will link anyone interested in reading the full list of comments, plus Roel’s orginal post. Its important to read the full context of ones comments not just trust my POV.

“The third issue is that regional boxes like Garden City transfer the cost of parking into the rents and thats equitable because all the people parking there are visiting the one centre. There is really no other reason to be parking there because there is nothing else to do but to go in to that centre – yawn!. In essence, you pay for parking at Booragoon through the shop till rather than in the car park. In a diverse and complex city centre, that opportunity really doesn’t exist even through the rate system. Paid parking is adopted as a more direct and equitable user-pays system.”

A simple example of the inaccuracy of such statements is going to a place like the coffee club in freo or Garden city where you would see the price is the same at both locations, no extra charge at Booragoon because parking is free. No to mention all the other added benefits of booragoon

Better ambiance with much less anti-social issues

Close to the Freeways, Canning Hwy, leach Hwy, Roe Hwy, easy enter and exit in your drive in and out

Bus Terminal hub

Air-condition shopping experience from top to bottom,

No crossing streets, or dodging cyclists and skaters, etc, safely navigating with the kids with less to worry about

No druggies and drunks laying in the centre of the shopping trip.

No parking tickets for being back to your car, when your a minute late from your max parking time of 30mins

No caught in the heat or rain

ETc, etc.

Sadly Freo over the last decade has only gone down hill, both state and federal governments have done little for Freo over the same time. Not much interest from our local members either who seem more interested in events outside our city than what is happening too it. When the state has tried to give needed infrastructure its met with councils protesting, spending thousands of dollars on meaningless reports, to object to simple needed infrastructure like roads to ease congestion in and around the city. More interested in driving political party rhetoric than amenity of its residents.

Hence Fremantle is where it is and sadly little sign that recover is coming as other centres surge ahead and fremantle is moving backwards.

Once recognized as Western Australia’s thriving, cosmopolitan second city, many of Fremantle’s retailers and small business owners have been struggling to stay afloat in recent years but the winds of change are in the air.

The first issue is what took Freo to the brink in the 1st place? Is it back, I don’t think so?

The so called anti-development did not drive out all the businesses and cause all the “For Lease” signs across the city. Protecting heritage is essential as its one of the things that makes Freo unique.

The loss of many key Fremantle icons and draw cards are at the heart of what killed Freo, or is still killing it.

To say not building a new office block or apartment is killing the city is not true, if it was then many old historical cities would have died off instead they thrive. Taking what they have, working with, protecting it, maintaining it and using them to drive their cities forward.

If Freo can make the top 10 places on Lonely Planet to visit it wasn’t talking about new hi-rises, or the Mayors drive for development at any cost, as most of the new stuff we see going up is pretty tacky. Of course there is some great stuff coming online as well.

Freo’s real decline is seen in the loss of places like Myers, the Dockers, the deal for oval has just inept, the decline of places like Fly by Night.

How many of these types of business, has the council seen go under in its time?

Then there is Freo’s shocking reputation for parking and its councils anti-car policies it’s driving constantly.

Freo’s even worse reputation for anti-social issues. Business and locals have been complaining about this for years its only just recently the council has woken from their slumber on this issue, of course we have the likes of wainwrights and his socialist buddies, who seem more worried about the druggies, vagrants, anti-social drunken crew, the vulgar language etc, etc. Than he is on the ones who pay the rates to fund the cities, councilor driven ideology, oh and pay the fees, that puts in his pocket. Of course it’s all the state governments fault not the city’s councilors and Mayor who have made these issues worse. Amazing how the Mayor of Perth clean up these issues in Perth, yet our Mayor and councillors laid out the carpet for it now they are trying to pull it back. 1-step forward, 2 steps back.

The Mayor Brad Pettitts drive for bigger and bigger booze events and venues where in some cases he gives away the space to the operator for free, letting local rate payers foot the bill the repair bills. Of course the bigger the booze event the more anti-social problems?

To show the hypocrisy the councils wants to have some sort of drive for stamping out domestic violence, yet on the other continues to drive bigger and bigger booze based events and business, it’s just laughable, you will see Wainwright talk about all these issues but vote for a massive booze sponsored event on south beach.

2nd worse place in Australia for coverage of concrete and bitumen in a city, our councils lust for pouring concrete into our parks.

Fremantle’s councils drive to call graffiti art giving our once great city its ghetto look.

The cities lack of focus on basic maintenance our town hall on the verge of ruin if basic gutter and rood repairs are not done.

Hi-rise development for offices and apartments are not what makes a city great, of course I don’t expect anyone profiting of this to agree as its their pockets the money flows too. As long as its all honest and above board nothing wrong with that but don’t kid yourself that a developer has the best interest of the city at heart, that’s like thinking a mining company has best interest of the environment in their mind 1st and fore most. No its about $$$$ the bottom line.

Another piece of journalism written with COF issued blinkers, I wonder if the Mayor gets to proof read these before they go to press?

The picture in the piece is one of the Mayors white elephants, the Kings Square Business Plan and issue that has been questioned in parliament and a minister responsible refuses to even give it due scrutiny. Google this and list of questions is endless, a project that could cost the Fremantle rate payers over $30,000,000.00

People investing like to see a steady reliable record of operation before investing in a location, the back flipping policies and style of council hardly sends that message.

The last survey report of the rate payers in Fremantle shows a city at its lowest point in history. the reputation it has for graffiti is shocking.

The recent election show’s them having their lowest vote turn out in history and more than 54% of the votes cast in the election for non sitting councillors, a clear majority that voted aren’t happy with the current direction.

All these issues are what’s killing freo, building a few new offices isn’t going to fix these problems. It would be great if it could.

Their pro graffiti policy just drives vandalism across the board, most suburbs have this issue but councils policy of judging whether it has artist merit goes against common sense and the state law.

Designing out Crime is a crime prevention strategy which aims to reduce opportunities for crime through the design and management of the built and landscaped environment.

It is also known as CPTED (pronounced ‘sep-ted’), which is an acronym for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. It is based on the theory that “the proper design and effective use of the built environment can lead to a reduction in the fear and incidence of crime, and an improvement in the quality of life”.

Fremantle council has CETLOCS, “Crime Encouragement Through Lack Of Common Sense.” pronounced what was I thinking? but its clear

The police warned them this would increase grafitti and with it, comes other crime. No crystal ball needed there.

Going against their own alcohol policy by approving the new new booze barn business @ J-shed, which will destroy Arthur’s Head, the round house and the impact of all this anti-social behaviour will wreck bathers beach, with as we have seen in the herald, drunks and druggies, crapping on the beach, used condoms, needles, crack pipes, the violence that follows. We have already seen several murders, drug over-doses deaths in Fremantle as well.

The lack of proper surveillance by councils actions, in the West End has just fuelled, anti-social behaviour, public drunkenness, drug use, vandalism, public defecation, slowly destroying the environment around Western Australia’s 1st and most prominent building.

The eyes on the street van seems to spend most of its time at night parked out in front of council chambers, or least any evening i have walked or driven by.

If the Double Tree Hilton is to open and the block around target stays the way it is this hotel will get a shockingly bad image very quickly, once in place it will hard and expensive to improve the locations image on the worldwide web.

God knows what tourist must think going to Arthurs Head and seeing the location of WA oldest building so mismanaged, dirty toilets, overflowing bins, broken bottles and booze containers littering the area, human excrement, used condoms, used syringes, grafitti, vandalism, businesses having to wait for the drunks and drug effected to leave the doorways so they can open up.

What’s council refer to it as oh yes was it the grunge factor?

Whats the councils biggest contribution to Fremantle could it be the, or or maybe or no this should be no1.

A few days ago I posted a blog titled Broken Windows Theory, does it fit Fremantle, this raise the association of allowing petty crime to go unpunished/unchecked to attract or encourage much more serious crime. Have a read it has lots of detail and links.

So today we see the Herald with an article of the growing Ice problem, ICE CONCERN GRIPS VALLEY , in the eastern side of WGV.

“In response to criticism that overgrown verges, scruffy council-owned sumps and sloppy maintenance in the parks are contributing to the problem, Cr Coggin says he’ll ask council managers to do better.”

These issues have brought to councils attention for years now, I have written about them on this blog, left comments on Roels freoview, called the council and made comments, spoken to councillors about these issues, been discussed at Precinct meetings. Its these issues that allow the environment or ambience to led people who are involved in these illegal businesses to think they can do these activities and no one will notice or care. Now to drive these illegal trades, dealers and users out will take months if not years, hundreds of man hours from the police and lots of stress and concerns from the local residences.

Council is far to distract with all their world issues, party political agendas pet projects, and spend far to little time dealing with the basics of of our cities, I know verges will not get you on TV or your picture and story in the West Australian, but it would represent the concerns of the residents they should be representing.

Issues like Neighborhood Watch again not a flash sound bite for talk back radio, and would requre lots of effort but would better tend to locals concerns more than solar or wind farms . Herald quote “There was a strong desire from the residents to work together to combat the problem, and a suggestion from local precinct co-convenor Mark Woodcock to resurrect Neighbourhood Watch and the Safe Houses program received a round of applause.”

Council is about “Local not Global”. Instead they need to wait till residents are screaming for the issues to be dealt with before the basics are addressed.

Sadly the city is too distract by the mayors, big issues like electric cars, one planet and irrelevant nonsense, with no focus on the basics, children should not to find used needles in their parks. One resident raised a good point about the needle exchange in Fremantle if it enforces the policy of bringing back one to get a clean one? I guess drug addicts aren’t the most responsible of people for public health and safety

Children shouldn’t have to find drug baggies on the walk to school. Not to mention the long grass on verges is a great place for snakes to hide, with the Kim Beazley site in dug up state how many snakes have been driven out into the suburbs.

Its time for council to focus on the basics, over the months I’ve made many comments or blog on the lack of councils focus to the basics. Its disgraceful that these issues have to reach such a low point to get basic action from our so called elected representatives.

Just recently I wrote a post on called ” Fremantles Dangerous Street Sumps” look at the picture, drive past the sump all that was done is a new piece of plastic netting was replaced. Allowing as the police stated for drug dealers to stash drug, use as a place to hide etc. Again giving this anti-social group, criminals added space to operate their sick destructive business.

Soon another poor decision one widely argued against by residences of our city will kick off the J-Shed this will become another anti-social issue for city not to mention the plethora of other issues it will cause. This one the council was not just asleep at the wheel for they intentional drove it off the cliff. If WGV has its problem in a quite suburb with ICE imagine a venue like this what it will attract? Another council created problem to be solved in the future.